Cybersecurity: Prevention is better than cure

Organizations looking to keep their sensitive data private and safeguard their finances from cyber threats must constantly re-evaluate their digital defences. New viruses are created regularly, and IT teams must stay on their toes to keep up. 

Data breaches continue to flood the news, and the average cost incurred for companies continues to rise. According to a survey by IBM, 25 Canadian companies suffered a breach in 2021, paying an average of $7 million in recovery costs per incident. 

The nature of these attacks is also evolving, with cybercriminals adopting new malicious behaviors to defraud your organization. This dynamic digital activity makes it difficult, yet essential, to be proactive with your cybersecurity efforts. 

That’s one reason why prevention is so vital to thwarting these criminals.

Organizations looking to keep their sensitive data private and safeguard their finances from cyber threats must constantly re-evaluate their digital defences. New viruses are created regularly, and IT teams must stay on their toes to keep up. 

Proper prevention measures save you time and money and dramatically reduce the risk of a costly attack. 

Blocking Out The Bad Guys

Plenty of cybersecurity-blocking solutions will sweep your organization for potential threats and malware. Products like antimalware, cloud security and email security can help block attacks. It’s also wise to put security strategies and cyber policies into place to help protect your business before anything happens. That could involve reducing vulnerabilities in your system and reducing potential entry points that criminals exploit to gain access.

While minimizing the impact of a breach is also essential, preventing attacks in the first place will help maintain productivity levels, reduce stress and eliminate any costly downtime your organization will have to spend putting out fires.

Three Keys to Prevention

Staying ahead of cybercriminals is a tough job, but with the right security strategy and partners in place, your organization can feel confident in its defenses. 

Here are three ways to stop cyber criminals in their tracks.

1. Raise cybersecurity awareness across your organization- Unfortunately, your people are the most significant security risk you face. Employees need to be educated on possible threats to keeping their valuable information secure. 

Offer training to employees on the latest phishing scams and ask for their feedback regarding current security policies. It’s only through education that your organization can reduce employee negligence. 

2. Protect your data and assets- Along with building a foundation in employee cybersecurity training, you’ll want to ensure employees know how to protect their physical devices and passwords. Monitoring the access points within your network is critical to preventing cybercriminals from getting in. 

Recording user activity can help detect any malicious activity and is useful for security audits as well when evaluating your protection methods. Consider also regularly backing up your corporate data.

3. Build strong cybersecurity policies- Put in place a formal guide for your cybersecurity measures to get everyone in the organization on the same page. This will act as a centralized security policy that each department can work off of to create policies that work for their needs.

Policies should also consider your technology stack and how you manage the various cybersecurity tools. Complex infrastructure can make it feel like you have all your bases covered, but it can actually complicate proper security management. Simplifying your security efforts and finding an all-in-one, lightweight solution will be beneficial in preventing attacks.

But putting a comprehensive cybersecurity program in place can feel daunting, and can distract from your primary responsibilities. 

Managed IT service providers are there to assist in delivering the prevention and protection measures necessary to keep your organization safe. Quercus IT offers a variety of security solutions with 24x7 threat monitoring as well as standardized policies and education services to train your employees. Contact us for more information.